"Flee pathetic mortals! You can run as far as you want but your flesh belongs to me now!"
Following the fall of Lethis Depravum on Lehron IV the master of the Coven of the Ebon Hand was slain and the Haemonculi fell into chaos. From this anarchy rose Aringrax whom had previously ran the mere day-to-day business of the coven. He offered the coven order and stability if he was made master of the coven itself, the alternative was a swift death at the hands of his pet Talos Pain Engine. Aringrax thus ascended to the power he had craved for so long, killing any who got in his way. Knowing he had many enemies within Commoragh who would seek to usurp him; Aringrax chose to take his coven into exile with the Skin-Lords and became the Faceless Archon's second-in-command. Paranoid and living in the shadow of his long-dead masters he seeks to build and triumph above all his predecessors. He will succeed where they failed and become the greatest Haemonculus in all history! For Aringrax failure is not an option.
The apprentices cowered and fled to carry out their master's will. Another time, another place that had been him, thought the Coven-Master as he turned from the hive of activity that was the torture pits beneath the Fleshless Palace. Aringrax had known servitude for so long and had desperately clung to whatever glimmer of power was presented to him; working his way up and up until there were none left above him on the blood-slicked ladder of power. Now the coven was his and his alone.
He floated above the metal floor by a few feet; anti-gravity generators were aided by his snake-like spinal column that tore itself from his back and pushed him higher into the air. As he surveyed the construction site he was dogged by his loyal Talos Pain Engine: a huge construct of warped flesh, alien metal and depraved science bristling with arcane weaponry should an assassin attempt to slay his equally repulsive master.
The walls of the pit rose upon vast cyclopean pillars of dark-yellow stone all around them where wracks and apprentices worked day and night on installing all manner of horrific facilities. Great sheets of copper-gold metal were being sawn and welded into place throwing sparks and shards of plasmic energy across the areas where vile mechanics directed work-gangs of deformed mutants, several of them catching aflame but nobody caring.
Huge vats of molten meat were being raised and regeneration pods hung upon magnetic hooks as the Haemonculi floated from level to level surveying his grotesque domain as it began to take shape. It very much resembled the torture pits his former masters had dwelt within in Commoragh but lacked the subtle elegance that ancient structure had possessed. This of course irritated Aringrax greatly, for he believed anything they could created he could not only match but also better.
He drifted from layer to layer of the labyrinthine structure and could not help but find some infinitesimal imperfection in everything that surrounded him. The smallest of things now brought great agitation to his mind; numbing frustration that all his power could not bring him the perfection he desired. Somewhere his slain masters were laughing at him, amused that for all his power he couldn't build a pit as impossibly and perversely beautiful as they could. He knew they laughed and he railed against it. They had said he was too young; not old enough to lead, to know the greater mysteries. They had been proven wrong on Lehron IV, it was Aringrax who ruled now as master of the Ebon Hand!
But were they wrong? He often wondered... No! They aren't laughing, there're dead, because I had them killed! That small dint, it isn't paranoia, no, neither is that little scuff mark on the side of that panel. Or that loose bolt, or that uneven welding. No, I am master here and this shall be my domain: perfect and magnificent, more than any other in the galaxy!
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| Bow before me and despair! |
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